Material Detail

This experiment demonstrates that plants use carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. Four Teaching Tanks (commercially available, narrow tanks) are filled with water and bromthymol blue indicator, and Elodea plants are added to two of the tanks. Blowing through a straw into each tank dissolves carbon dioxide into the water and turns the indicator yellow. The tanks are sealed with clay, and a pair of tanks���one tank with Elodea and one without���is put in sunlight, while the other pair is put in darkness. After an hour, the tank with Elodea in sunlight will have returned to blue color. Learners can infer that the carbon dioxide in that tank has been used by the Elodea, since the water in "control" tanks remains yellow. Though designed as a demonstration, this activity could be adapted to allow varying degrees of learner hands-on involvement, and higher grade learners could potentially do all the steps without a demonstrator.

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